Quiet World
by Dark Sadistic Angel
Summary: Heero, after an unusual upbringing, attempts to adjust to normal life. He then meets Duo. Shonen Ai hints.


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Disclaimers Apply.  
Fanfiction by: Dark Sadistic Angel  
C&C: darksadisticangel at

Shonen-Ai Hints. 1x2.

Quiet. That was how they described him. Non-descript. Nothing outstanding. In a classroom filled with chattering groups, his small corner of the room was like a different place. Still. Remote. Faded. He wasn't part of the class. He was more like the observer, looking literally through the glass at them with his wire frames. They were glasses he didn't really need, but wore anyway. That, and the too perfectly straightened uniform he wore marked him as an overachiever- a teacher's favoured type of student. This repelled the ordinary student in a subtle enough manner that they avoided him unconsciously. After the initial few days of newness as a transfer student, the others around him finally settled down enough to peg him as nothing interesting, and at last began to ignore him.  
The distance he had from the group was all part of his plan.  
In a sense, it was amazing that he managed to don the cloak of invisibility within a fortnight.  
He didn't want to give away the fact he didn't actually know the rules of society, and the quietness of his personality was due to the extreme social awkwardness he felt dealing with his so-called peers. They were nothing alike. He couldn't understand the way the language of the other students, despite the observation hours he had racked up trying to decipher the code and unspoken rules of conduct.  
Odin Lowe, his new guardian, had briefed him a little on the new environment before he had been placed at the boarding school, but the older man was not around now. He was somewhere in Afghanistan, according to the postage mark on the letter he had received recently. But since that was a week back, the chances of Lowe moving to some other place was high. Doctor J, his former guardian, and the one person he had been with the longest, had trained him intensively, in many areas and prepared him for many situations. But in the wrong areas. Doctor J had not exactly been, according to Lowe, in touch with reality.  
Observing the outside world now, he could see exactly how far Doctor J had been from it.  
Yet Heero Yuy didn't know what to make of it himself even as he lived in it.  
Lowe had promised that if, in three years time, the civil life didn't agree with him, he'd take him back to a world where perhaps Heero could utilise the skills and knowledge Doctor J had trained him in, but until then, according to a set of worldly rules Lowe had stated to be laws that he couldn't break, Heero was to experience what is was to be "normal". It was for the best, Lowe had gently declared.  
It didn't feel like it.  
The bell for lunch rang. In a thundering storm, the classroom emptied out  
Taking his time, he reluctantly followed.  
'...and then he said... but I said... then-'  
Lunch time. The worst period. It was only during that period, did Heero struggle to fit into the crowd. For one thing, the students populated the school's cafeteria in a seemingly random fashion that was anything but random. He couldn't figure out a place where he could fit in. So he neatly took his pre-ordered lunch, packed neatly by the staff with his name written on the brown packaging, outside of the cafeteria. Anywhere was good so long as there was no one around.  
The bench beside the library, he found, was an excellent place. It was very accessible. Because of the triangular slant of the walls framing the bench, despite being positioned near the popular walkway, it stayed hidden between the back of the main school building and a side entrance of the library that nobody used. The passageway to it was sheltered from passer bys by the plants planted by library.  
He'd found the place unoccupied up to now.  
Heero held the sandwich and drink in his hands as he looked down at the long hair youth sleeping face down on his bench. The brown hair of the boy was braid and it so long that it dangled down past the bench and onto the concrete. He looked like a dead man, but Heero could tell by the boy's breathing that he was not.

Now where was he going to eat?  
He looked back behind him at the walkway, then back at the stretched out, closed eyed boy before him.  
Shrugging, he squatted down behind the boy, and started to eat.  
The boy was asleep. Therefore, the boy's presence did not matter. He would be soon gone from the area once he was done. He placed down the brown bag and fished out the apple in it. Biting in it, he looked out towards the walkway, continuing on with his studies of the student life on the campus beyond by observing the normal occupants of it. He jerked as he heard a shuffle behind him, and came face to face with the long hair boy. No longer sleeping, the boy's torso was half upraised on the bench as he looked down at Heero, his balance poised on draw elbows. The boy looked back at him, his eyes now open- wide and very blue. He grinned, or rather, half grinned as in his mouth dangled down Heero's sandwich. In the short time it had taken Heero to take one bit out of his apple, the other boy had snagged his lunch bag and had managed to unwrap the sandwich within, and two large bites were already gone out of it. In the next second, the grin disappeared briefly as the long hair boy proceeded to swallow and hastily devour the rest of the cheese and lettuce sandwich. In the next blink after that, the other boy was drowning down the sandwich with his juice.  
'...' Heero was speechless.  
The boy gave a burp, another cheeky grin, then he was off- running away fast from the bench. The long hair of the youth swung out and disappeared around with the corner soon after his back.  
He left Heero with the garbage.

He saw the boy again the next morning. Very early morning. Heero stopped, and stared down at the figure running through the sports field. He was not dressed in the regular school uniform he had on before, but the uniform gym clothing of white shorts and a red v-necked t-shirt. Without thinking much about it, Heero reached out and pulled a peer classmate passing through the hallway.  
'Who's that?' he inquired neutrally.  
The white blond hair boy gave Heero a frown. Then it cleared.  
'Oh that's right, you're new. You don't know things. Well, he's Duo Maxwell- some Church minister's supposed "son"- but he's really some street guttersnipe. Rather ill mannered, but what can you expect from poor people?' the boy sniffed through his upturned nose. 'You'd be best to avoid him- all of us do. If it weren't for our charitable conscious, he wouldn't be tolerated here at all. Even with his athletics scholarship, I don't believe a person of his grade should be admitted to this school.'  
With that, the short boy shrugged off Heero's contact and continued on his way. Heero allowed him to go. His expression thoughtful, Heero studied the running figure in the rich green fields beyond.

At lunch time, he made his way to the bench.  
Again, the bench was occupied.  
By the same person. Sleeping. Or rather, no doubt feigning sleep. He shrugged, and place down the brown paper in his hand, and slid his back down the wall. As soon as he bit into his apple, he heard a shuffle.  
He turned. Again, two wide blue eyes looked brightly at him, humour evident in them as the mouth below worked furiously at devouring what had been in the brown bag- a large hamburger. It took a little longer than yesterday to finish due to the larger size, but nevertheless, the hamburger disappeared nearly as quickly as his sandwich the other day did. A hand snatched at the drink he'd left beside the bench and Duo began swallowing it, moving away from Heero as he did so. Obviously, the boy was preparing to run again.  
Wordlessly, Heero brought out another bag from his right and pulled out an apple from it. He tossed it at Duo. The long hair boy caught it, then blinked down at it.  
Heero pulled out the cheese and lettuce sandwich in the brown paper bag and began to unwrap it. When he bit down into its softness, he heard a crunching sound. Duo had bitten into the apple.  
'Erm... thanks...'  
He heard the mutter, but did respond.  
They ate together. He ate more slower than Duo did. By the time Duo finished the apple- a mere minute or so- he'd only finished the first sliced half of his sandwich. Initially, there was continued silence from his new companion's side.  
Then, Duo began to talk.  
Heero paused and cocked his head to the side as Duo's voice flowed over him. He spoke the same alien language that the others did, Heero discovered. If not more so- his sentences was full of words Heero never heard spoken before nor knew the meaning to. But as Duo continued to speak without pause, Heero found out that Duo didn't require the answers that the others did. The initial panic in Heero subsided as he realised this. Thirty minutes later, Duo fell quiet.  
Heero looked up at the silence, only to find the stunning shade of blue irises looking at him searchingly.  
'What?' he asked.  
'I'm Duo Maxwell- Maxwell as in the Maxwell Church down the road a bit. Like my namesake, I'm poor as a mouse.'  
Heero looked blankly back at Duo.  
'You're the first person that I encountered that wasn't a snob here. What's wrong with you?'  
'I don't understand.'  
'Never mind- I think you've just answered that for me. You're not normal.'  
Heero frowned at that.  
'I plan to be normal.'  
Duo blinked. Then laughed.  
'Give it up. There's no why you will be. Not here. You have to have a certain "born" set of mind to be normal here- and you've just prove yourself to not have it,' Duo said, laughing. 'Hell- you're civilized to somebody who's proven himself to be a thief.'  
Heero began to scowl.  
'You're okay the way you are,' the smile from Duo's face suddenly dropped. 'Kinda glad you're the way you are. This world would be a better place with more people like you.'  
'...' Heero blinked.  
Not sure how to react, he leant over to Duo and reached out his hand. Heero stuffed the rest of his sandwich into Duo's mouth.  
'Mmph?'  
Picking up his drink, Heero settled back into his position and sipped through the straw.  
Laughter came from Duo's side, and the boy lapsed again in a babbling speech that Heero couldn't understand. But with the clear warmth in Duo's voice, Heero didn't feel so alienated by his lack of understanding of what Duo said- there was a sense of a strong familiarity he felt with the other school misfit. Duo must have felt the same, because it took a month for Duo to realise he didn't know Heero's name- and had blushed when asking for it. Heero wasn't offended by it, though. By then, they had fallen into a relationship. They had become friends. Although he still felt like an observer of society through his unnecessary glasses, Heero didn't feel lonely.  
He had Duo in his side of the world.

Fin.

DSA


End file.
